Two-Piecewise Companding Transform for PAPR

Reduction of OFDM Signals

Pinlu Yang Aiqun Hu
School of Information Science and Engineering School of Information Science and Engineering
Southeast University Southeast University
Nanjing, 210096, China Nanjing, 210096, China
Email: plyang@seu.edu.cn Email: aqhu@seu.edu.cn

Abstract—To reduce the peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) power unchanged. However, under certain system constraints,
of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) signals, a the PAPR reduction was limited. In [10], four typical linear and
two-piecewise companding (TPWC) transform is proposed so as nonlinear companding transforms were investigated, where
to compress large signal amplitudes and expand small ones with
two different linear functions. The TPWC transform can provide a linear nonsymmetrical transform (LNST) was the best in
significant PAPR reduction with low computational complexity, terms of both the PAPR reduction and BER performances. In
which is similar to other existing linear transforms. Besides, the LNST, small and large signal amplitudes were linearly
a good trade-off between PAPR reduction and bit-error-rate transformed with different scales, which were achieved by
(BER) performances can be achieved by carefully choosing the introducing an inflexion point. However, due to the presence
three parameters in the proposed scheme. A good power spectral
density (PSD) performance can also be achieved, since there are of the inflexion point, one-to-one mapping was not satisfied
no inflexion points in the resulting profile. The idea of the two- and additional side information was needed in the inverse
piecewise transform can be extended to other nonlinear functions. LNST. An important nonlinear companding transform was
proposed in [11], named exponential companding (EC) trans-
I. I NTRODUCTION form, where an original Gaussian-distributed OFDM signal
was transformed into a uniform-distributed signal. Especially,
Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) has
the input and output of the EC transform were kept at the same
gained interest for high-data-rate wireless communications,
average power level. However, compared to the LNST, more
due to its high spectral efficiency and robustness to frequency
complex computation was required. Moreover, the impact of
selective fading [1]. On the other hand, OFDM suffers from
filtering out the OBR in companding transforms, which had
large envelope fluctuation of the transmitted signal, which
been neglected in the earlier reports, was emphasized in [12].
may occasionally produce a high peak-to-average power ration
In this paper, a two-piecewise companding (TPWC) trans-
(PAPR). The high PAPR requires a large dynamic range of
form is proposed and analyzed. In the TPWC transform,
both the digital-to-analog (D/A) and analog-to-digital (A/D)
similarly to the LNST, small signal amplitudes are linearly
converters to cope with the worst-case signal peaks. The high
transformed only with a scale, and, differently to the LNST,
PAPR also requires a wide linear range of the power amplifier
large amplitudes are linearly transformed not only with a scale
(PA) to counteract a nonlinear distortion. Both requirements
but also with a shift. There exist no inflexion points in the
could cause efficiency problems and would be impractical for
resulting profile. By carefully choosing the two scales and
most applications. In order to solve these problems, several
the shift, a good trade-off between PAPR reduction and BER
PAPR reduction techniques have been proposed over the years
performances can be achieved with low computational com-
[2], such as clipping [3], block coding [4], multiple signal
plexity, and a good power spectral density (PSD) performance
representation [5],[6], tone reservation and injection [7],[8],
can be realized without changing the average power level.
and companding transform [9]. Here, clipping is the simplest
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. A typical
technique. However, it causes significant in-band distortion
OFDM system is given in section II. In section III, the TPWC
(IBD) and increases out-of-band radiation (OBR). Compand-
transform is proposed. The performance of the proposed trans-
ing transform is also a simple method, which processes the
form is analyzed and compared with the LNST and the EC
OFDM signals directly. Considering both the PAPR reduction
transform through computer simulations, which is shown in
and bit-error-rate (BER) performances, a well-designed com-
section IV. In section IV, an extension of the TWPC transform
panding transform can outperform the conventional clipping.
is also discussed. Conclusions are given in section V.
A µ-law companding transform was firstly introduced in
[9], whose idea came from the use of companding in speech II. S YSTEM M ODEL
processing. In µ-law transform, the PAPR was reduced by
Consider a typical OFDM system as shown in Fig.1. The
increasing the average signal power while keeping the peak
input data is first converted into N parallel streams, which are
then mapped and transformed into OFDM symbols. The mth

978-1-4577-9538-2/11/$26.00 ©2011 IEEE 619

 Input Serial to Parallel
a random variable exceeding a given threhold, Here, it can
Mapping IDFT Companding
be written as CCDF , Pr {PAPR > PAPR0}. Moreover, it

...

...

...
data parallel to serial
D/A and has been proved in [13] that, for an oversampling rate greater
HPA
than four, the PAPR of a continuous OFDM signal can be
Channel approximated by that of the OFDM samples. As a result, only
discrete OFDM signals is considered in this paper.
A/D
In order to reduce the PAPR, we introduce a companding
Output Parallel De- Serial to
DFT De-companding transform after the parallel to serial conversion in the system.
...

...

...
Data to serial mapping parallel
Let C [·] denote the companding function that changes only
amplitudes of the input signals. After companding, the samples
Fig. 1. A baseband OFDM system with companding transform.
can be denoted as
1
Theoretical PDF yn = C [|xn |] · sgn (xn ) , (4)
Statistical PDF
0.8
where xn = |xn |·sgn (xn ) and sgn(·) is the sign function. The
companding transform may cause both the IBD and the OBR.
0.6 As discussed in [12], the OBR should be suppressed by a
PDF

bandpass filter (BPF), or otherwise it might cause interference

0.4 with adjacent channels. For simplicity, we ignore the impact
of the BPF. Next, the companded samples are converted into
0.2 analog waveforms by a D/A converter and then amplified by
a high power amplifier (HPA), which is commonly described
0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4
by an Rapp’s solid state power amplifier (SSPA) model [14].
Amplitude Here, we also ignore the impacts of the HPA. Note that the
effect of the D/A converter can be neglected, if its word length
Fig. 2. The distribution of the amplitude.
is long enough [10]. Finally, the generated OFDM signals are
transmitted into the radio channel. For simplicity, an additive
OFDM symbol can be expressed by white Gaussian noise (AWGN) model is used here.
N −1
1 X 2πkn III. T WO -P IECEWISE C OMPANDING T RANSFORM (TPWC)
xm,n = √ Xm,k ej N , (m − 1)N ≤ n < mN, (1)
N k=0 In this section, a TPWC transform, based on the above
where Xm,k represents the modulated data on the kth sub- mentioned amplitude distribution, is proposed to reduce the
carrier, and xm,n denotes the time-domain sample in the nth PAPR of OFDM signals. According to the distribution function
interval. The above sampled OFDM signal, which is generated in Fig.2, it can be found that small amplitudes occur with
via a inverse discrete fourier transform (IDFT), may exhibit high probability, while in contrast large ones occur with low
large amplitude peaks due to the in-phase addition. According probability. Intuitively, without changing the average power,
to the central limit theorem, the amplitudes of OFDM samples the expanding of small amplitudes will have great influence
have an approximate Rayleigh distribution, whose probability on the BER performance, and the compressing of large ones
density function (PDF) can be written as will provide the capability of PAPR reduction. In order to
 2 do trade-off between BER and PAPR reduction performances,
2x x small and large amplitudes should be treated individually.
f|xn | (x) = 2 exp − 2 , (2)
σ σ In the TPWC transform, small amplitudes (|xn | ≤ v) are
h
2
i multiplied by a scale factor u1 , while large ones (|xn | > v)
where σ 2 = E |Xk | is the corresponding samples variance.
are not only multiplied by a scale factor u2 but also added by a
A typical PDF with σ 2 = 1 is shown in Fig.2. In the following shift s. Moreover, the cut-off point of the amplitude is chosen
paper, we consider the first OFDM symbol for example, i.e. s
as v = u1 −u , so that there is no inflexion point. The resulting
2
m = 1, xn = x1,n and Xk = X1,k . profile is piecewise-linear and continuous, as shown in Fig.3,
As seen from Fig.2, the OFDM samples suffers from large where the profile of LNST is also given for comparison. It can
amplitude fluctuation, which can be measured by the PAPR, be found that both of them have a similar operation, which will
defined as follows result in a similar computational complexity. The proposed
n o
max0≤n≤N −1 |xn |
2 companding function is defined as follows:
PAPR , . (3) (
σ2 u1 |xn | · sgn (xn ) , |xn | ≤ v,
Note that the PAPR is a random variable, whose performance yn = (5)
(u2 |xn | + s) · sgn (xn ) , |xn | > v,
can be evaluated by its complement cumulative distribution
function (CCDF). The CCDF is defined as the probability of where u1 > 1, 1 > u2 > 0, and s > 0. Accordingly, the

620
 A 10
0

Original
TPWC (m=1.2)
EC
−1 TPWC (m=2)
10
Output amplitude

LNST
TPWC

CCDF
u2 −2
10

s u1
−3
10
LNST

−4
0 10
0 v A 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
Input amplitude PAPR0/dB

Fig. 3. The proposed companding transform. Fig. 4. Probability of PAPR exceeding PAPR0.

TABLE I
PARAMETERS CALCULATION
Here, we calculate two sets of parameters, as shown in Tab.I,
m u1 u2 v = mσ s = (u1 − u2 ) v for instances and evaluate the performances in the next section.
1.2 1.143 0.13 1.2σ 1.216σ
IV. P ERFORMANCE E VALUATION
2 1.009 0.14 2σ 1.738σ
In order to evaluate the PAPR reduction performance of
the proposed transform and its impact on the OFDM system
de-companding function can be written as: (such as the degradation of BER and PSD), a simulation was
(
1
performed. As described in section II, a baseband OFDM
0 |rn | · sgn (rn ) , |rn | ≤ u1 v, system with 1024 subcarriers and QPSK mapping was con-
xn = u11 (6)
u2 (|rn | − s) · sgn (rn ) , |rn | > u1 v, sidered in the simulation, where OFDM samples with 4-times
oversampling rate were used. Moreover, for the LNST, ideal
where rn is the received complex OFDM signals, i.e. rn =
side information was also assumed.
yn + wn , and, wn is the sampled AWGN signal.
There exist three independent parameters (u1 , u2 , v) in the A. PAPR reduction
above functions, since s = (u1 − u2 ) v. In order to keep the
First, we give the PAPR reduction capability of the TPWC
input and output of the TPWC transform at the same average
transform. According to the definition in (3), the maximum
power level, the three parameters should satisfy the condition
Z v Z ∞ PAPR of the simulated OFDM symbols can be denoted as
2 2 2
u1 x f (x)dx + (u2 x + s) f (x)dx = σ 2 . (7) A2
0 v PAPRORIG = (13) ,
R∞ R∞ σ2
It√ can be easily found that 0 f (x)dx = 1, 0 xf (x)dx =

π R∞ 2 2 where A = maxm max(m−1)N 6n<mN |xm,n | . After the
2 σ, and 0 x f (x)dx = σ . Moreover, after assuming v = TPWC transform, the maximum PAPR of these OFDM sym-
mσ, m > 0, it can be further calculated that
Z v bols is reduced to
2 2
f (x)dx = 1 − e−m , (8) (u2 A + s)
0 PAPRTPWC =
σ2 (14)
Z v √  h p i
π 2 = u2 PAPRORIG + m (u1 − u2 ) ,
xf (x)dx = σ Φ(m) − me−m , (9)
0 2
Z v which will be proved by the simulation results.
Fig.4 compares the CCDFs of the PAPRs for four signals,
h 2
i
x2 f (x)dx = σ 2 1 − m2 + 1 e−m ,


(10)
0 i.e. the original OFDM signal, the LNST signal, the EC-
√ Rm 2 transformed signal and the TPWC-transformed signal. It can
where 2π Φ(m) = 0 e−x dx . Now, we substitute the above
be easily found that both the LNST and the TPWC transform
six equations into (7), and get
with m = 2 can reduce the corresponding PAPR by 4dB

 
2
u21 − u22 1 − e−m + u22 − 1 = when CCDF = 10−2 . Meanwhile, under the same value of


√ (11) the CCDF, the EC transform and the TPWC transform with
πu2 (u1 − u2 ) m [φ(m) − 1] . m = 1.2 can get about 8dB and 6.5dB PAPR reductions
Note that when m > 1.2, we have φ(m) ≈ 1 and so as to respectively. Here, the effectiveness of the proposed transform
obtain a simple condition as in PAPR reduction has been demonstrated. Comparatively
 2
 2 speaking, the EC transform has the best PAPR reduction
1 − e−m u21 + e−m u22 = 1. (12) performance due to its nonlinear property.

621
 0 12
10
Original
TPWC (m=1.2) 11
−1 EC
10 10
TPWC (m=2)
LNST 9

PAPR0/dB
−2
10
8
BER

−3
7
10
6 Original
−4 5 TPWC (m=1.2)
10 TPWC (m=1.6)
4 TPWC (m=2)
TPWC (m=2.4)
−5
10 3
0 5 10 15 20 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8
SNR/dB u2

Fig. 5. BER vs SNR. Fig. 7. PAPR vs u2 with CCDF = 10−2 .

10 −1
10
Original Original
LNST TPWC (m=1.2)
0 EC TPWC (m=1.6)
TPWC (m=2) TPWC (m=2)
−10 TPWC (m=2.4)
PSD/dB

BER0
−20 −2
10

−30

−40

−3
−50 10
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8
Nomalized frequency u2

Fig. 6. Comparison of PSDs. Fig. 8. BER vs u2 with SNR = 6dB.

B. BER Fig.5 shows the required signal to noise ratio (SNR) for
Next, we evaluate the impact of the proposed transform on a given BER over AWGN channels. The SNR is defined
the BER performance. The BER of the original OFDM signal, as σE2b in (15). As seen from Fig.4 and Fig.5, in obtaining
w
passing through an AWGN channel, can be given as a similar PAPR reduction performance to the LNST, the
s ! TPWC transform with m = 2 has 0.8dB SNR loss, which
Eb is caused by the shift of large amplitudes. However, since
BER = Q 2
, (15)
σw the large amplitudes occur with low probability, the impact
2
is limited. Besides, the TPWC transform does not need any
where Eb is the signal power, σw is the noise variance, and side information that is extremely important in the LNST. It
Q(·) is the Q function. To get the BER of the transformed is also seen from the two figures that, in obtaining a similar
OFDM signal, we write the recovered data on the kth subcar- BER performance to the EC transform, the TPWC transform
rier at the receiver as with m = 1.2 has 1.5dB PAPR performance loss. However,
  
0
DFT xn + wn , |xn | 6 v, the complexity of TPWC transform is reduced.
u1
Xk =   (16)
DFT xn + wn s , |xn | > v. C. PSD
u2 + |xn |
The PSD performances for the original OFDM signal and
where DFT(·) denotes the discrete fourier transform. Here, the
the other three companded OFDM signals are given in Fig.6.
equivalent noise variance can be represented by
! Intuitively, due to the linear operation and no flexion point,
2 2
2 1 − e−m e−m 2
the TPWC-transformed signal should have the best PSD
σwTPWC ≈ +
2 σw (17) performance, which has been proved by the simulation results.
u21 u2 + m (u1 − u2 ) l Moreover, due to the abrupt jump around the inflexion point,
where |xn | ≤ lv. According to the simulation results, we let the LNST signal has the worst PSD performance.
l = 8m for approximation and get the resulting BER as
s ! D. Parameters of TPWC
Eb It can be seen from the previous subsections that the PAPR
BER = Q 2
, (18)
σw TPWC reduction and BER performances of the TPWC transform

622
 0 0
10 10
Original Original
TPWC (m=2) EC
ETPWC (m=2) −1 TPWC (m=1.2)
TPWC (m=1.2) 10
−1
10 ETPWC (m=1.2)
ETPWC (m=1.2)
−2
10
CCDF

BER
−2
10
−3
10

−3
10 −4
10

−4 −5
10 10
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 0 5 10 15 20
PAPR0/dB SNR/dB

Fig. 9. Probability of PAPR exceeding PAPR0. Fig. 10. BER vs SNR.

depend on three parameters (u1 , u2 , v). With reference to (12),
a combination (m, u2 ) can decide the other two parameters
u1 and s. The effect of u2 on PAPR with CCDF = 10−2
is shown in Fig.7. It is observed that, for each m, the PAPR
performance will get worse as u2 increases. Similarly, for each
u2 , the PAPR performance will get worse when m increases.
Another effect of u2 on BER with SNR = 6dB is given in
Fig.8. As observed, a better BER performance can be achieved
when u2 increases or m increases. As a result, a good trade-
off between PAPR reduction and BER performances can be
achieved by carefully choosing u2 and m.
E. Extension of the TPWC transform
Actually, based on the TPWC transform, a better PAPR
reduction performance can be expected, if we compress large
amplitudes not with a linear function but with a nonlinear
function, e.g. exponential function. For instance, an expansion
of the TPWC (ETPWC) transform is realized as
 [5] S. H. Muller and J. B. Huber, “Ofdm with reduced peak-to-average
u |x | · sgn (xn ) , |xn | ≤ v,
r n h
yn = 
|x | 2
i
 2σ 2 1 − exp − σn2 · sgn(xn ), |xn | > v,
√ (19)
2[1−exp(−m2 )]
where v = mσ and u = .
Note that, when m is
m tion,” Ph.D. dissertation, Univ. of Stanford, CA, Sep. 1999.
small enough, the average power of the input and output of the
ETPWC transform is still at the same level. The corresponding
PAPR reduction and BER performances are given in Fig.9
and Fig.10 respectively. It can be found that, under the same
value of m, the ETPWC transform will result in a better PAPR
reduction performance than the TPWC transform, at the cost
of higher computational complexity. Moreover, the ETPWC
transform can achieve a better BER performance than the
EC transform. Intuitively, the ETPWC transform will get a
worse PSD performance than the TPWC transform, for the
introduced nonlinear operations.
V. C ONCLUSION
We have proposed and evaluated the TPWC transform in
this paper. The TPWC transform is an effective technique
for PAPR reduction of OFDM signals, due to its low com-
putational complexity and no constraint on system. It can be
seen as an enhancement of the LNST, where no flexion point
is existed and no additional side information is needed. It is
shown that the proposed scheme could offer a good trade-off
between PAPR reduction and BER performances by carefully
choosing the parameters. It could also achieve a good PSD
performance. An extension of the TPWC transform is realized
by modifying the companding function for large amplitudes.
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